A year after the U.S. Supreme Court declared terror detainees have the constitutional right to challenge their detention, Colorado-based law firm Holland & Hart announced Thursday that it will represent five Guantanamo Bay prisoners in that quest.

Lawyers from the firm are filing a petition today in U.S. District Court on behalf of Algerian detainee Motai Saib, who has been held at the controversial prison for more than three years without being charged with a crime. The case is one of five that will be taken on pro bono by five teams of lawyers at Holland & Hart.

Human-rights activists and lawyers have complained that more than 500 terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been unfairly denied access to legal counsel and courts. The June 2004 Supreme Court decision affirmed those rights.

In Geneva, meanwhile, U.N. human-rights investigators on Thursday urged the United States to allow them to check conditions at Guantanamo.

The failure of the United States to respond to requests since early 2002 is leading experts to conclude Washington has something to hide at the Cuban base, said Manfred Nowak, a specialist on torture and a professor of human-rights law in Vienna.

“At a certain point, you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government,” Nowak said.

However, he added, “We are not making a judgment if torture or treatment under degrading conditions has taken place.”

Washington’s response is delayed because the U.S. review process is “thorough and independent” and involves the Bush administration, Congress and the judicial system, said Brooks Robinson, spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to U.N. offices in Geneva.

In Denver, Mackintosh said that giving the Guantanamo Bay detainees proper access to the law will “help shore up the image of the U.S. as a country that follows the rule of law,” especially in the wake of negative reports such the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.

A former Peace Corps volunteer in the West African country of Morocco, Mackintosh said he has the language and cultural skills to communicate with the Algerian detainees. Several other lawyers at the firm speak French, which the Algerians also likely speak.

The lawyers have not spoken yet with the detainees. After filing the petitions, the lawyers can apply for security clearance to talk to their clients at Guantanamo Bay. Military officials will screen all interview notes for sensitive information.

Mackintosh said a best-case scenario would be “if information is brought to light that allows for the release of detainees that are being improperly held as quickly as possible.”

Spain came under repeated attack starting Thursday in what authorities called linked terrorist incidents, when a driver swerved a van into crowds in Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas district, killing more than a dozen people and injuring scores of others. Early Friday, an attempted attack unfolded in a town down the coast

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”